Vikings schedule: Is there weakness in our sweetness?

For those still unwilling to wholly digest the purple kool-aid for our 9-1 Vikings, skeptics need look no further than the team's schedule. While the Vikings indeed sport the NFC's top passer, leading receiver in yardage, second-leading rusher and an NFL-best 36 sacks -- said numbers have been accrued versus competition with a lowly combined win percentage of just .350.

The objective herein, it should be noted, isn't to slight the Purple. They can't control who they play, and with what they have opposed they've namely defeated with aplomb. Rather, the more salient point is to gather if such a puffy collection of victims will behoove -- or perhaps doom -- the Vikings come games of greater gravity, against stouter competition. While the Vikings' road to date charts no present division leaders, it is worthy of mention that the regular season schedule will indeed become more demanding, with future opponents offering a present win clip of .560, including consecutive games against current divisional leaders Arizona and Cincinnati in Weeks 13 and 14, respectively.

At the risk of losing perspective with six games to play, that present opponent win clip of .350 would represent the lowest oppositional mark for an NFC Conference Champion since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970. Yet, if the Vikings are indeed to ascend to Super Bowl XLIV in Miami, it appears that their ensuing opponents would raise that percentage to a mark eschewing a caveat attached to a Purple title. But as the following will evidence, a weak schedule is not necessarily a harbinger for failure to be crowned NFC Conference, or even Super Bowl champions.

Of the 35 NFC champions between 1970-2008, just 11 played a regular season schedule presenting an overall winning percentage from their combined opponents -- of the remaining 24 teams, 21 played a schedule presenting a combined losing percentage, while three teams played a .500 schedule.

For your stat pleasure, here is a listing of both the top ten NFC Champs with the lowest opponents win percentage for the regular season, and a list of the ten highest. Their respective Super Bowl appearance and result is attached.